Unnatural Causes

by P. D. James

  Of course not, thought Dalgliesh. And Seton’s wife would have been even less likely to mistake it. So Seton had deliberately driven his wife to suicide. If this were true it was an act of wanton cruelty greater in degree but of the same nature as the killing of Bryce’s cat. But somehow this picture of a calculating sadist was subtly out of focus. Dalgliesh had only met Seton twice but the man had never struck him as a monster. Was it really possible that this pedantic, nervous and self-opinionated little man with his pathetically overvalued talent could have nourished so much hatred? Or was this scepticism merely the arrogance of a detective who was beginning to fancy himself as a diagnostician of evil? After all even if one gave little Crippen the benefit of the doubt, there were still plenty of nervous, ineffectual men on record who had proved far from ineffectual when it came to getting rid of their wives. How could he, after two brief meetings, know the essential Seton as well as Alice Kerrison must have known him? And there was the evidence of the letter, a letter which Seton, whose carefully filed correspondence at Seton House was all typewritten, had taken the trouble to write with his own hand.

  He was about to ask what Dorothy Seton had done with it when the telephone rang. It was an incongruously strident noise in the silence of that immense, candle-lit room. Dalgliesh, startled, realised that he had unreasonably taken it for granted that there was no electricity at Priory House. He peered around for the instrument. The bell seemed to be ringing from a bookcase in the dark recess at the far end of the room. Neither Sinclair nor Alice Kerrison made any move to answer it.

  Sinclair said: “That will be a wrong number. No one ever rings us. We only have the telephone in case of emergency but the number isn’t in the book.” He glanced across at the instrument complacently as if gratified to know that it was actually in working order.

  Dalgliesh got up. “Excuse me,” he said. “But it may be for me.” He groped for the instrument and laid hold of its smooth coldness among the objects which littered the top of the bookcase. The irritating noise ceased. In the quiet he could almost believe that everyone present could hear Inspector Reckless speaking.

  “Mr. Dalgliesh? I’m speaking from Pentlands. Something has happened which I think you should know about. Would it be convenient for you to come now?” Then, as Dalgliesh hesitated, he added: “I’ve got the PM report. I think it will interest you.”

  He made it sound like a bribe, thought Dalgliesh. But he would, of course, have to go. The formal, unemphatic tone of the request didn’t deceive either of them. If they had been working on a case together Superintendent Dalgliesh would have summoned Inspector Reckless, not the other way round.

  But they weren’t working on a case together. And if Reckless wanted to interview a suspect—or even the nephew of a suspect—he could choose his own time and place. All the same, it would be interesting to know what he was doing at Pentlands. Miss Dalgliesh hadn’t locked the cottage when they left for Priory House. Few people at Monksmere bothered to lock up and the possible murder of a neighbour hadn’t induced his aunt to change her habits. But it was unlike Reckless to make himself so at home.

  He made his excuses to his host who accepted them with little sign of regret. Dalgliesh suspected that Sinclair, unused to company other than his aunt, was glad enough to see their party reduced to the familiar three. For some reason of his own he had wanted Dalgliesh to hear Alice Kerrison’s story. Now it had been told and he could speed his guest with satisfaction and some relief. He merely reminded Dalgliesh to pick up his torch on the way out and instructed him not to return for his aunt as he and Alice would escort her home. Jane Dalgliesh seemed happy enough with this arrangement. Dalgliesh suspected that she was being tactful. Reckless had only asked to see him and his aunt had no wish to be an unwelcome third even in her own house.

  He saw himself out, stepping into darkness so impermeable that at first his eyes could distinguish nothing but the white blur of the path at his feet. Then the clouds moved from the face of the moon and the night became visible, a thing of forms and shadows heavy with mystery and pungent with the sea. Dalgliesh thought how in London one could rarely experience the night, riven as it was by the glare of lights and the restlessness of men. Here it was an almost palpable presence so that there moved along his veins the stirring of an atavistic fear of darkness and the unknown. Even the Suffolk countryman, no alien to the night, could hardly walk these cliff paths without a sense of mystery. It was easy to understand how the local legends had grown that sometimes, on an autumn night, one could hear the muffled beats of horses’ hoofs as smugglers brought their kegs and bales from Sizewell Gap to hide them in the marshes or carry them inland across the desolate Westleton heathlands. Easy, too, on such a night to hear from the sea faint bells of long-drowned churches, St. Leonard’s, St. John’s, St. Peter’s and All Saints clanging their dirges for the souls of dead men. And now there might be new legends to keep the countryman indoors on the autumn nights. The October legends. One of a naked woman, pale under the moon, walking through the waves to her death; one of a dead and handless man drifting out on the tide.

  Dalgliesh perversely decided to walk home along the edge of the cliff. It would add fifteen minutes to his journey but it wouldn’t hurt Reckless, comfortably ensconced at Pentlands, to wait another quarter of an hour. He found the path with his torch and followed the little pool of light which moved before him like a wraith. He looked back at the house. It was formless now, a black mass against the night sky with no sign of habitation except the thin shafts of light between the dining-room shutters and one high round window which blazed out like a cyclops eye. While he watched, the light went out. Someone, probably Alice Kerrison, had gone upstairs.

  He was nearing the edge of the cliff now. The waves thudded more clearly in his ears and somewhere, piercingly shrill, a seabird called. He thought that the wind might be rising although it was still little more than a strong breeze. But here, on this exposed headland, it was as if sea, land and sky shared a perpetual and gentle turbulence. The path was becoming more overgrown. For the next twenty yards it was little more than a tortuous clearing through the brambles and gorse whose thorned branches caught at his legs. He was beginning to think that it would have been wiser to take the inland path. The gratification of making Reckless wait struck him now as irrational and childish and certainly not worth the ruining of a pair of perfectly good trousers. If Seton’s body had been carried from Priory House through this prickly jungle there should be some evidence of its passing. Reckless would certainly have gone over the ground with care; he wondered what, if anything, he had found. And it wasn’t only the path. There would be forty or so rackety wooden steps down to the beach to be negotiated. Sinclair was a strong man despite his age and Alice Kerrison was a healthy countrywoman; but Seton, small as he was, would have been literally a dead weight. It would have been an exhausting, almost impossible journey.

  Suddenly he saw a white shape to the left of the path. It was one of the few remaining tombstones on this part of the cliff. Most of them had long since crumbled with age or been swept under the sea to yield in time their quota of bones to the human debris washed up by the tides. But this one stood and, on impulse, Dalgliesh went over to examine it. It was taller than he had expected and the lettering was cut clear and deep. Crouching low, he shone his torch on the inscription:

  IN MEMORYOF HENRY WILLM. SCRIVENER

  Shot from his horse by a party of smugglers

  while travelling in these parts,

  24th SEPT. 1786.

  The cruel balls have pierced me to the heart

  No time have I to pray ere I depart.

  Traveller pause, thou knowest not the Day

  When thou must meet thy Maker on the Way

  Poor Henry Scrivener! What ill chance, Dalgliesh wondered, had brought him travelling on the lonely road to Dunwich. He must have been a man of some substance. It was a fine stone. He wondered how many years it would be before Scrivener, his stone and its pious exhortation
were in turn swept away and forgotten. He was scrambling to his feet when the torch jerked in his hand and shone full on the grave itself. He saw with surprise that someone had opened it. The turf had been replaced, the brambles twisted together again to form a dense and prickly panoply, but the grave had undoubtedly been disturbed. He knelt again and gently shifted the soil with his gloved hands. It was light and friable. Hands other than his had been there before. Within a few seconds he unearthed a femur, then a broken scapula and, finally, a skull. Henry Scrivener had been given companions in death. Dalgliesh guessed at once what had happened. This was Sinclair or Alice Kerrison’s way of disposing of the bones they found on the beach. All of them were very old, all bleached by the sea. Someone, and he thought it was probably Alice, had wanted to give them a reburial in consecrated ground.

  He was musing over this fresh insight into the ways of that odd couple at Priory House and turning the skull over in his hands when he caught the soft thud of approaching footsteps. There was a rustle of parted branches and suddenly a dark figure was standing over him, blotting out the night sky. He heard Oliver Latham’s light, ironic voice: “Still detecting, Superintendent? You look, if I may say so, like an under-rehearsed First Grave Digger. What a glutton for work you are! But surely you can let poor Henry Scrivener rest in peace? It’s a little late, I should have thought, to start investigating that particular murder. Besides, aren’t you trespassing?”

  “Rather less than you are at the moment,” said Dalgliesh evenly.

  Latham laughed: “So you’ve been dining with R. B. Sinclair. I hope you appreciated the honour. And what did our great apostle of universal love have to say about Seton’s peculiarly unpleasant end?”

  “Not much.” Dalgliesh scooped a hole in the soft earth and began covering up the skull. He smoothed soil over the pale forehead and trickled it into the eye sockets and the gaps between the teeth. Without looking up he said: “I didn’t know you were fond of nocturnal walks.”

  “It’s a habit I’ve only recently taken up. It’s most rewarding. One sees such interesting sights.”

  He watched Dalgliesh as the reburial was completed and the turfs replaced. Then, without speaking, he turned to go. Dalgliesh called quietly after him: “Did Dorothy Seton send you a letter shortly before she died?”

  The dark figure stood stock still, then slowly turned. Latham asked softly: “Is that any concern of yours?” And, as Dalgliesh hesitated he added: “Then why ask?” Without another word he turned again and disappeared into the darkness.

  16

  The light was on over the cottage porch but the sitting room was almost in darkness. Inspector Reckless was sitting alone in front of the dying fire rather like a guest who, unsure of his welcome, is making a propitiatory gesture of economising on the lights. He rose as Dalgliesh entered and switched on a small table lamp. The two men faced each other in its soft but inadequate glow.

  “Alone, Mr. Dalgliesh? You had some trouble perhaps in getting away?”

  The Inspector’s voice was expressionless. It was impossible to detect either criticism or enquiry in the flat statement.

  “I got away all right. I decided to walk back along the cliff. How did you know where to find me?”

  “When I found the cottage empty I supposed you and Miss Dalgliesh would be dining somewhere in the district. I tried the most likely house first. There are developments which I wanted to discuss with you tonight and I didn’t want to talk on the phone.”

  “Well, talk away. But what about something to drink?”

  Dalgliesh found it almost impossible to keep the note of cheerful encouragement from his voice. He felt uncomfortably like a housemaster jollying along a promising but nervous examination candidate. And yet Reckless was entirely at ease. The sombre eyes gazed at him with no trace of embarrassment or servility. “For God’s sake, what’s wrong with me?” thought Dalgliesh. “Why can’t I feel at ease with the man?”

  “I won’t have anything now, thank you Mr. Dalgliesh. I thought you’d be interested in the pathologist’s report. I got it early this evening. Dr. Sydenham must have been up all last night with him. Would you like to take a guess at the cause of death?”

  “No,” thought Dalgliesh, “I wouldn’t. This is your case and I wish to God you’d get on with solving it. I’m not in the mood for guessing games.” He said: “Asphyxia?”

  “It was natural causes, Mr. Dalgliesh. He died of a heart attack.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no doubt of it. He had a mild angina complicated by a defect of the left atrium. That adds up to a pretty poor heart and it gave out on him. No asphyxia, no poisoning, no marks of violence apart from the severed hands. He didn’t bleed to death, and he didn’t drown. He died three hours after his last meal. And he died of a heart attack.”

  “And the meal was? As if I need to ask!”

  “Fried scampi with sauce tartare. Green salad with French dressing. Brown bread and butter, Danish blue cheese and biscuits, washed down with Chianti.”

  “I shall be surprised if he ate that at Monksmere,” said Dalgliesh. “It’s a typical London restaurant meal. What about the hands, by the way?”

  “Chopped off some hours after death. Dr. Sydenham thinks they may have been taken off on Wednesday night, and that would be logical enough, Mr. Dalgliesh. The seat of the dinghy was used as a chopping block. There wouldn’t be much bleeding but if the man did get blood on him there was plenty of sea to wash it away. It’s a nasty business, a spiteful business, and I shall find the man who did it, but that’s not to say it was murder. He died naturally.”

  “A really bad shock would have killed him, I suppose?”

  “But how bad? You know how it is with these heart cases. One of my boys has seen this Dr. Forbes-Denby and he says that Seton could have gone on for years with care. Well, he was careful. No undue strain, no air travel, a moderate diet, plenty of comfort. People with worse hearts than his go on to make old bones. I had an aunt with that trouble. She survived two bombing-outs. You could never count on killing a man by shocking him to death. Heart cases survive the most extraordinary shocks.”

  “And succumb to a mild attack of indigestion. I know. That last meal was hardly the most appropriate eating for a heart case, but we can’t seriously suppose that someone took him out to dinner with the intention of provoking a fatal attack of indigestion.”

  “Nobody took him out to dinner, Mr. Dalgliesh. He dined where you thought he might have done. At the Cortez Club in Soho, Luker’s place. He went there straight from the Cadaver Club and arrived alone.”

  “And left alone?”

  “No. There’s a hostess there, a blonde called Lily Coombs. A kind of right-hand woman to Luker. Keeps an eye on the girls and the booze and jollies along the nervous customers. You know her, I daresay, if she was with Luker in fifty-nine when he shot Martin. Her story is that Seton called her to his table and said that a friend had given him her name. He was looking for information about the drug racket and had been told that she could help.”

  “Lil isn’t exactly a Sunday-school teacher but, as far as I know, she’s never been mixed up in the dope business. Nor has Luker—yet. Seton didn’t tell her the name of his friend, I suppose?”

  “She says that she asked but he wouldn’t tell. Anyway, she saw the chance of making a few quid and they left the club together at nine-thirty. Seton told her that they couldn’t go back to his club to talk because women weren’t admitted. That’s true; they aren’t. So they drove around Hyde Park and the West End in a taxi for about forty minutes, he paid her five quid for her information—I don’t know what sort of a yarn she pitched him—and he got out at Paddington Underground Station leaving her to take the cab back to the Cortez. She arrived back at ten-thirty and remained there in view of about thirty customers until one in the morning.”

  “But why leave in the first place? Couldn’t she have spun him the yarn at his table?”

  “She said he seemed anxious to get
out of the place. The waiter confirmed that he looked nervy and on edge. And Luker doesn’t like her to spend too much time with one customer.”

  “If I know Luker he’d take an even poorer view of her leaving the club for forty minutes to take a trip round Hyde Park. But it all sounds very respectable. Lil must have changed since the old days. Did you think it a likely story?”

  Reckless said: “I’m a provincial police officer, Mr. Dalgliesh. I don’t take the view that every Soho tart is necessarily a liar. I thought she was telling the truth, although not necessarily the whole truth. And then you see, we’ve traced the cab driver. He confirmed that he picked them up outside the club at nine-thirty and dropped Seton outside the District Line entrance at Paddington about forty minutes later. He said they seemed to be talking together very seriously for the whole of the journey and that the gentleman made notes in a pocket book from time to time. If he did I should like to know what happened to it. There was no pocket book on him when I saw the body.”

  Dalgliesh said: “You’ve worked quickly. So the time he was last seen alive is pushed forward to about ten-ten. And he died less than two hours later.”

  “Of natural causes, Mr. Dalgliesh.”

  “I think he was intended to die.”

  “Maybe. But I’m not arguing with facts. Seton died at midnight last Tuesday and he died because he had a weak heart and it stopped beating. That’s what Dr. Sydenham tells me and I’m not going to waste public money trying to prove that he’s wrong. Now you’re telling me that someone induced that heart attack. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I am saying that there’s no evidence yet to support it. I’m keeping an open mind on this case. There’s a lot we don’t know yet.”

  That remark struck Dalgliesh as a considerable understatement. Most of the facts Reckless didn’t yet know were surely almost as crucial as the cause of death. He could have catalogued the unanswered questions. Why had Seton asked to be dropped at Paddington? Who, if anyone, was he on the way to meet? Where had he died? Where was his body from midnight on Tuesday onwards? Who moved it to Monksmere and why? If the death had indeed been premeditated how did the murderer contrive so successfully to make it look like natural death? And this led on to a question which Dalgliesh found the most intriguing of all. Having done so, why didn’t he leave the body in London, dumped perhaps at the side of the road to be later identified as that of a middle-aged, unimportant detective novelist, who had been walking in London on his own mysterious business and had been overcome by a heart attack? Why bring the body back to Monksmere and stage an elaborate charade which couldn’t fail to arouse suspicion of foul play and which would inevitably bring the whole Suffolk CID buzzing around his ears?